Artificial Intelligence

News about Artificial Intelligence, including commentary and archival articles published in The New York Times.

Chronology of Coverage

Jun. 25, 2015

Gadgetwise column; Amazon Echo is small, artificially intelligent personal assistant that is called Alexa; it is still a little light on the 'intelligent' at this stage of development, but it may be harbinger of better assistants to come. MORE

Jun. 4, 2015

Computer scientists organizing annual international competition for artificial intelligence technology bar researchers from Baidu, China's leading search engine, from contest; public announcement states that Baidu's team violated submissions rules in effort to gain unfair advantage over competitors; computer scientists express dismay over episode, which raises broader concerns about ethics in scientific research. MORE

May. 26, 2015

Scientists' efforts to build robots capable of human-like cognition have proved slow and challenging, as evidenced by entries in Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's Robotics Challenge competition; difficulty has prompted some researchers to shift focus from building autonomous robots to robot-human partnerships. MORE

May. 22, 2015

Team of researchers at University of California, Berkeley, are training robots to match humans in speed and dexterity via artificial intelligence technique known as 'deep learning'; technique, previously used in speech recognition and computer vision tasks, combines several types of software and allows robots to learn tasks in short amount of time. MORE

May. 20, 2015

Op-Ed article by author Nicholas Carr holds fears and aspirations about superiority of computers to human cognition are excessive, and founded on an exaggeration of what artificial intelligence is actually capable of; reviews history of automation in aviation industry; says computerized devices fall far short of human beings when it comes to improvisation, and that it is best to view them as partners, rather than replacements. MORE

Apr. 19, 2015

Zeynep Tufekci Op-Ed article warns that advances in software and robotics will not only take away low-wage jobs, but also will shift balance of power in workplace in favor of employers; suggests that standard response of urging people to learn more skills will not address problem, and that true solution requires examination of how humans value one another. MORE

Mar. 8, 2015

Op-Ed article by writer Shelley Podolny calls attention to growing use of computer algorithms to produce written content that readers are unable to distinguish from content written by humans; examines implications of this development, and in particular how it will make humans rethink how central language is to their identity. MORE

Jan. 11, 2015

Gareth Cook profile of Sebastian Seung, who gave up promising career as neuroscience professor for highly speculative project that sought to map human brain; Seung was widely regarded as having made a mistake until in 2014 he published article in journal Nature demonstrating that brain map was possible through use of artifical intelligence and online game called EyeWire. MORE

Dec. 16, 2014

The Upshot; technological breakthroughs are enabling machines to do knowledge jobs and service jobs, in addition to factory and clerical work; digital technology has over 15-year period inserted itself into nearly every aspect of life even as job market has fallen into long malaise; many economists are not sure about whether technology will create as many jobs as it destroyed, which was the case with previous technological leaps (Series: Nonemployed). MORE

Dec. 16, 2014

Stanford University announces study in which scientists will begin century-long study of impacts of artificial intelligence on society, including on the economy, war and crime; project will examine how technology reshapes roles of humans. MORE

Dec. 16, 2014

Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, launched in 2014 by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen as sibling to Allen Institute for Brain Science, is carrying out effort to advance artificial intelligence while simultaneously drawing on field's beginnings in 1950s and 60s; while power of new AI technologies is not disputed, there is growing debate over whether they alone can create human-level capabilities. MORE

Nov. 18, 2014

Independent studies by scientists at Google and Stanford University have created artificial intelligence software able to recognize content of photos and videos with such accuracy that it mirrors human levels of understanding; advances may make it possible to better catalog and search for billions of images and hours of video available online; findings appear in Stanford technical report and arXiv.org, open source site hosted by Cornell. MORE

Nov. 12, 2014

Some scientists say arms makers have crossed into troubling territory by developing weapons, like guided missiles, that rely on artificial intelligence, not human instruction, to decide what to target and whom to kill; as these weapons become smarter and nimbler, critics fear they will become increasingly difficult for humans to control, or to defend against. MORE

Nov. 6, 2014

Nick Bilton Disruptions column warns that as computers get smarter and artificial intelligence more sophisticated, they will take more human effort to regulate and may spiral out of control; says resulting scenarios could range from small but eventful to cataclysmic. MORE

Oct. 31, 2014

David Brooks Op-Ed column posits the age of artificial intelligence may finally be at hand, but voices apprehension at its implications; holds that human identity is shaped by what machines and other animals cannot do; fears possibility that in the future, if the architecture of machines is based on big data from vast crowds, everyone will follow the prompts and choose to be like each other. MORE

Sep. 21, 2014

News analysis; host of new data-driven technologies for health care, many with enormous potential, raise question of when technology and data have been useful to promote and ensure better health and added true value to health care; data about such benefits is mixed. MORE

Aug. 8, 2014

IBM details TrueNorth computer chip it has developed in article published in journal Science; chip is inspired by human brain architecture and may one day exceed capabilities of today's supercomputers by mimicking the way brains recognize patterns. MORE

Jul. 9, 2014

Maureen Dowd Op-Ed column expresses concern about development of artificial intelligence and increasingly capable robots by companies like Google; notes that while artificial intelligence is largely fantasy, robots putting people out of work is a very real possibility. MORE

Apr. 6, 2014

Annie Lowrey It's the Economy column examines crowdworking platforms like Mturk and CrowdSource that are intended for the menial jobs that still require a flicker of human intelligence and that computers cannot replicate, but have prompted consternation for being a sort of outsourcing service that drives down wages; says even more troubling is the fact that crowdsourcing platforms are hurrying along the automation of more and more of these tasks.. MORE

Dec. 29, 2013

First commercial version of a new kind of computer chip that can learn from its mistakes is schedule to be released in 2014; new computing approach, based on the biological nervous system, could turn the digital world on its head. MORE

Nov. 14, 2013

IBM will announce that Watson, computing system that beat all the humans on Jeopardy in 2011, will be available in form more than twice as powerful via the Internet; companies, academics and individual software developers will be able to use Watson at a small fraction of the previous cost. MORE

Sep. 8, 2013

Michael Kaplan article describes how Texas Hold 'Em Heads Up Poker, poker-playing gambling machines, use artificial intelligence to play the popular game so well they can be counted on to beat poker-playing customers of most any skill level. MORE

Jul. 30, 2013

Technology companies are rushing into predictive search, developing apps like Google Now that process digital clues to anticipate what users want to know; technology is the latest development in Web search, and one of the first that is tailored to mobile devices; it does not even require people to enter a search query, as one's context--location, time of day and digital activity--is the query. MORE

Jun. 2, 2013

Jenna Wortham Bits column contends that emotional artificial intelligence, also called affective computing, may be on its way; says devices and apps may one day respond when we are frustrated, bored or too busy to be interrupted; points out, however, they would also be intrusive in ways that cannot be fathomed today. MORE

Apr. 16, 2013

The Week column; study published by Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence finds that software program was better than human participants at guessing age of Twitter posters, though its accuracy was limited to singling out younger users; other significant developments in health and science news highlighted. MORE

Apr. 5, 2013

System developed by EdX, joint venture between Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Techology, uses artificial intelligence to assess student papers and short written answers, freeing college instructors for other tasks; automatic grading systems for multiple-choice and true-false tests are widespread, but use of technology to grade essays has not yet received widespread endorsement by educators and has many critics. MORE

Feb. 28, 2013

IBM is trying to expand its artificial intelligence technology and find commercial uses by training its Watson computer in projects that involve developing drugs, predicting when industrial machines need maintenance, creating food recipes and other useful, real-world applications. MORE

Dec. 30, 2012

Steve Lohr Unboxed column contends that it is easier than ever to measure and monitor people and machines, but the technology of Big Data is not without its shortcomings; says his bigger concern is that algorithms that are shaping his digital world are too simple-minded, rather than too smart. MORE

Nov. 24, 2012

Technology companies, using artificial intelligence technique inspired by the brain's recognition of patterns, are reporting startling gains in fields like computer vision, speech recognition and the discovery of new molecules for pharmaceuticals; experts say the technology, called 'deep learning', could have an extremely wide range of applications. MORE

Sep. 9, 2012

Steve Lohr Unboxed column notes computing may be on the cusp of another wave of technology; cites researchers who say smarter machines and software will automate more tasks and help people make better decisions in business, science and government; says technological building blocks, both hardware and software, are falling into place, stirring optimism. MORE

Aug. 12, 2012

Steve Lohr Unboxed column contends that judging from its many turns in the spotlight in 2012, the term Big Data has sprung from the confines of technology circles into the mainstream; points out Big Data is a shorthand label that typically means applying the tools of artificial intelligence, like machine learning, to vast new troves of data beyond that captured in standard databases. MORE

Jun. 26, 2012

Google scientists created one of the largest neural networks for machine learning by connecting 16,000 computer processors, which they then turned loose on the Internet to independently learn; network, presented with 10 million digital images found in YouTube videos, taught itself to recognize cats, a feat of significance for fields like speech recognition. MORE

Jun. 10, 2012

Randall Stross Digital Domain column observes that sophisticated software holds promise for making the grading of student essays more efficient--and it would not entirely replace human teachers, as they would still judge the content of the essays; points out that, as essay-scoring software becomes more sophisticated, it could be put to classroom use for any type of writing assignment throughout the school year, not just in an end-of-year assessment. MORE

Apr. 23, 2012

Michael Winerip On Education column describes University of Akron study that found computerized grading systems are capable of scoring essays on standardized tests as well as human beings do; warns that programs can still be fooled. MORE

Mar. 17, 2012

Doctor Fill, computer program designed by Prof Matthew Ginsberg, will compete against 600 human beings in the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament in Brooklyn; program has excelled in simulations of previous tournaments, but observers contend that human beings may still have an advantage when it comes to humorous or creative puzzle answers, which sometimes fall outside the reach of the program's analytic strategies. MORE

Dec. 6, 2011

Biological principles are gaining ground in the field of artificial intelligence, as computer scientists attempt to develop computer circuitry that more closely resembles the workings of the human brain; innovations are necessary as the limitations of traditional circuitry become apparent. MORE

Oct. 16, 2011

Pagan Kennedy essay recounts his experience buying book from VDM Publishing, which generates books from Wikipedia articles; expresses doubt that artificial intelligence will ever be able to succeed in role of author. MORE

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